The present disclosure relates to social networks, and more specifically, to optimization of posting in social networks.
Currently, social networks allow users to post content, such as messages and pictures, and to categorize postings in an ad hoc manner. Users that post content, also referred to as content providers, often use tags to attract more viewers or comments to the content that they post. In typical social networks, when a user posts content to the social network, the posting is published to the social network immediately. Accordingly, whenever a user posts something, it will be uploaded and can be seen in almost real-time to the other users of the social network. One drawback of the real-time posting of content is that the time that the content is posted is often only convenient for viewing by users who share a similar time zone with the content provider.
For users that have a big time zone difference with the content provider, there is typically a large time difference between when the content is posted and when the content is viewed. For example, if a user in New York posts a picture at 2:00 pm EST, which is equivalent to 2:00 am in part of China, the picture may be immediately viewed by people in United States. However, users of the social network in China will likely not immediately view the picture as they would be sleeping at that time. Rather, the picture will probably be viewed by users of the social network in China about seven hours later when the users wake up. The real-time posting issue is compounded by the fact that most social networks display postings in chronological order. Accordingly, in the above example, the posting of the picture will be displayed beneath all of the content posted during the time between the posting of the picture and the time the user accesses the social network.